 As far as this Sony-verse goes, it's no secret at this point that the only movies in the handful of life-action superhero/supervillain adaptations worth a damn are the 'Venom' movies. While perhaps not necessarily THE story of Venom we all know and love, they did okay with what they had to work with, made it their own concept, and the character of Eddie Brock/Venom is a hell of a lot closer than he was in 'Spidey 3.' So, surely, noted as being the final 'Venom' movie, this should be going out with a bang, right?
I think there's a lot to this that fans will appreciate, but I also think that of the three, this was probably the weakest, when it should have been the strongest. It picks up from the stinger of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home,' in which Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) finds himself in the MCU, chatting with a bartender, only to be sent back to the Sony-verse, leaving behind a trace of Symbiote material (which is in the MCU's hands now). Back home, the pair are on the run after the events of the previous film, which killed off Det. Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham), leaves them the primary suspect. In an attempt to start a new life, however, Eddie and Venom decide to head to New York City. On the way, however, the pair are attacked by an alien creature known as a Xenophage, sent by Symbiote creator, Knull (Andy Serkis). Long ago, his Symbiotes overthrew him, and trapped him in a prison to prevent him from taking over the universe with his power. In order to get free of said prison, Knull sends these Xenophages to Earth to retrieve a Codex, which will be able to free him, and allow him to carry out his plans. The Codex is formed is a Symbiote's host dies, and the Symbiote is able to resurrect him, which we saw happen in the first film. As long as Venom is in full form over Eddie, the Codex acts like a beacon for the Xenophages, so throughout the film, Venom does a lot of hiding away. So now, they're not only on the run from a deadly alien creature, but the law as well. It gets even better, when Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) enters the picture, overseeing an operation called "Imperium", at (where else?) Area 51, in which the Symbiotes who have fallen to Earth get studied. While Strickland is very much of the mind that these Symbiotes have landed for some sort of alien invasion, researchers Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple) and Sadie "Christmas" (Clark Backo) have different opinions, and resort to a whole "don't judge a book by its cover" side-plot when it comes to the Symbiotes. And I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that the B story here sort of takes a front seat to things. Everything going on in this lab is far more fascinating than Eddie/Venom just... running and hiding for the most part. Eddie/Venom still delivers when we see them together, although at times it gets a bit too silly. I mean, for the first time since 2007, I feel like we have a Symbiote who literally dances himself into humiliation, and it's pretty cringe-worthy. That said, there are a few just as solid scenes to this, like the Symbiote horse, and the pair finally saying "we are Venom!" before devouring a bunch of thugs like the "Lethal Protector" we all know and love. But it really does feel like they're on the run from a non-threat. While the Xenophages provide some stiff competition, Knull, himself, is one of the laziest-written villains I've eve seen in my life. If you've come to see Knull in all his glory, I'm afraid you're SOL, because he's barely here, and when he is, he's just sitting there with his head down, looking gothic. So just to be clear, first threat, Riot, second threat, Carnage, third threat (though admittedly tough), Xenophage, NOT Knull. Anyway, it's fine for a third film, but I'd say easily the weakest of the three, trying to do too much, and amounting to too little. And what's super curious about this being a supposed "finale" - there's a stinger! 2/5
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 For those who don't know, the Joker character is who I consider my favourite villain of all time. I say "character" because part of what makes him my favourite is how flexible he can be as far as portrayal goes. While there are so many similarities between so many different versions, they're all really quite unique in their own ways. I won't go through each and every one, but my personal favourites include Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Mark Hamill. I will admit, however, that Joaquin Phoenix could be added to that list... if it wasn't for this movie.
In the first 'Joker,' I truly appreciated the more dramatic take on it, bringing the mental health situation into play. Essentially, the origin story had a lot to say about the stigmas still attached to mental health problems, and the Joker, himself, ends up being a product of untreated mental health thanks to poor government funding. It was really well done, I appreciated to new take on things, and I enjoyed how they managed to combine his genuine creepiness with a bit of sympathy. It's no fun 'Batman' flick, but it was well executed. A little time unfolded, discussions were had, word of mouth spread, and a lot of people even ended up making Phoenix their new favourite portrayal of the Joker. Then we all received that odd bit of news saying that the sequel would be a musical starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. That was a lot to digest. I was lukewarm to the idea of Gaga being Quinn, and the musical aspect felt odd. But even with all of that, I was still willing to give it a chance, recognizing that he musical aspect of things would tie into the mental health aspect of things, and play out as fantasy. Joker, a.k.a. Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) awaits his trial for his crimes at Arkham State Hospital. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) plans to use dissociative identity disorder as their defence, hoping to convince the judge that the Joker did the crimes of the previous movie, and not Arthur Fleck. This is pretty much the whole movie - awaiting the trial, and then the trial itself. All in all, at least in my humble opinion, it's kinda boring, and it drags. The only real saving grace could possibly be the arrival of Harleen Quinzel (Gaga), who calls herself "Lee" through the movie. These two meet, not in therapy sessions conducted by Lee as a professional, but in the same hospital. It is mentioned that she has degrees in her field of psychology, but otherwise, here, she's just another patient. She comes to admire the way Arthur pulled off his crimes, and is in love with his destructive and chaotic personality. Real fans of Harley Quinn need not apply,. however, because this is about as far away from Harley as I can imagine, aside from a couple of very basic personality traits, which have already pretty much been mentioned. While the whole trial portion of the film is a bore on its own, the rest of it is just Arthur and Lee putting on some kind of half-assed Broadway show about how much they love each other, and whether or not Lee can be trusted. If you're looking for a dark, violent movie with a dash of dark comedy, you are SOL here. There's a bit of violence, but it's completely crowbarred in, and any supposed jokes fall pretty flat here. And then there's the ending, which seems evidently controversial for fans, but even as a fan, I just plain didn't care either way. I am going to be slightly controversial here, myself, and give the film credit for just one thing. Unfortunately, that one thing happens to be the risks they took with things here in trying something new and different. It flopped on its ass, but at least they were ballsy enough to go for it. In the end, this really ends up being a bit more of an artsy-fartsy film starring the Joker. But the rest of us fans remember Nicholson's art gallery scene from '89, and prefer that more chaotic version of the Joker being artistic. This didn't ruin the character for me or anything, but I can say with full conviction now that Phoenix is NOT my Joker. 1/5  Here's an opportunity to talk a bit about how I feel about Sony and their "Spider-Verse". When it came to 'Venom' and 'Let There Be Carnage', they weren't great, but I enjoyed the execution of the titular characters. As for 'Morbius', it was just kinda "there" and ultimately forgettable. Nothing, however actually got completely under my skin until this, and even though none of the aforementioned titles were that good, this one takes the cake. All comic book/superhero universes combined, this is one of the worst modern titles I've seen yet.
Even upon hearing it was gonna be Sony's next project in their "Not-Spider-Man" line of 'Spider-Man' related films, I had to wonder who the hell was asking for it. The ONLY excuse I can think of is that they felt like they needed a hero to come in and battle all these villains Sony has been working on getting together. I'm no expert when it comes to the complete universe of 'Spider-Man', but I'm relatively sure that Madame Web is not nor has ever been a "main character" so much as a side character who's only ever popped up here and there. I seem to remember her being more of an old lady, as well, but I guess that's Hollywood for ya. We open in Peru, 1973, where explorers Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) and his pregant partner, Constance Webb (Kerry Bishé) are in search of a rare spider that is said to have healing properties in its venom. Legend has it that the spider has given rise to a tribe in the area who have superior climbing and jumping abilities and... they're basically a tribe of "Spider-Men" who don't have web-shooters. Anyway, the spider is found, Ezekial betrays their exploration team and, in the process, leaves a dying Constance behind. The "Spider-Tribe" manages to save the baby, Cassandra, but (spoiler alert) Constance doesn't make it. Fast-forward to 2003, where Cassandra (Dakota Johnson) works as a paramedic, accompanied by work partners *sigh* Ben Parker (Adam Scott), who's actually married to a Mary Parker (Emma Roberts), and O'Neil (Mike Epps). During one particularly dangerous call, "Cassie" has a near-death experience, and to make a long story short, she discovers that she can see into the future, giving her the ability to hopefully prevent future tragedy. Meanwhile, Ezekiel has developed limited precognition (among other Spider-Man related abilities including the ability to make his own Spider-suit that may get butts into theatre seast with a trailer). Ezekiel's precogntion leads him to believe that three teenage girls, Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor). would one day kill him, and his motivation through the film is as simple as "get to them before they get to him." The rest of it is essentally an escort mission movie involving Cassie protecting the teenagers from Ezekiel's constant attacks dressed as a dark Spider-Man. Alhough, I will be somewhat fair in that Ezekiel Sims' character does have similar abilities to Spidey in the comics, and each of the teenagers are representing different "Spider-Women" from the comics. So, I think I see what they were going for. Usually, if I do a little bit of homework on these characters, I can find things the movie did that were "right", so to speak, but I have to say right off the bat that if you came to see these "Spider-Women" do their thing, you get a grand total of maybe about 30 seconds of action and most of the movie is just a guy who looks like a dark Spider-Man chasing the group around while Madame Web uses her abilities to protect them. At the end of the day, it's too many characters with nothing much happening, a bunch of easy-to-call cliches, and really bad dialogue including the line "If you accept the responsibility, the power will come" and if you know anything about 'Spider-Man', you know what line that is trying to be. I'm genuinely curious to see where Sony goes from here, but it's not like with other properties that might have me excited for their futures. This is almost more like watching a very slow trainwreck happen, and it's baffling to me that Sony's animated 'Spider-Verse' movies with Miles Morales are so good while these live action flicks just keep failing harder and harder every time. If that's not enough, this comes from the writers of the hard fail that was 'Morbius', and directed by S.J. Clarkson, who was at the helm of 'Jessica Jones' and 'The Defenders', so this is about the level of quality we're looking at here. 1/5 |
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